A Promise A Person Can't
by alanabloom
Summary: The dog strains against the leash, the howl only amplifying, and maybe it's the sleep deprivation, but something about the animal in that moment reminds of her of Will, trapped and helpless and confused. It makes her feel so damn useless. Something inside Alana cracks open, and suddenly there are tears rolling down her cheeks and she's standing on her porch pleading with a dog.


Alana doesn't sleep much lately.

The first few nights it's unavoidable. When Will and Hannibal disappear to Minnesota, she's up all night, waiting by the phone...not that she could have slept much regardless, considering the news she'd started the day with. The next night she spends at the hospital with Will. He's unconscious most of the time, and groggy and delirious even when he isn't. He's being treated for his gunshot wound and encephalitis, but the following morning, barely twenty-four hours after he was brought in, he'll be transported back to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

The third night worry keeps her up. She can't stop thinking of Will, sleeping in that tiny cell until _whenever_. She's been to that hospital dozens of times, having sessions with the inmates, and the thought of Will as one of them makes her sick to her stomach.

The fourth night, however, exhaustion has finally numbed her. She moves in a fog all day, using all the concentration she possesses to pay attention during meetings with Jack Crawford or Will's lawyer. By the end of the day, even the sharp ache that's lived in her chest since Jack told her about Will's arrest feels dulled by her fatigue.

And yet it's 2:23 in the morning, and she still can't sleep...because there's a high pitched, incessant whine coming from her foyer.

It's only one of the dogs, though he's quite possibly channeling the confusion and unhappiness of the group, such is the strength and volume of his whimper. Alana does nothing for nearly an hour, hoping the animal will tire itself out. She simply lies in the darkness, listening to the singular note of anguish reverberate through her chest.

Finally, giving up on sleeping through the sound, Alana gets out of bed and hurries downstairs to identify the source. She's not surprised to find it's the brown mutt, the one with sad eyes and flecks of black in his fur, sitting in front of her front door, just as he has for the past few days. Alana remembers this one as sweet and friendly the few times she went to Will's, but ever since she collected the dogs from Animal Services he hasn't let her touch him, growling every time she comes close.

"Heeey boy...it's okay..." She approaches tentatively, voice gentle, hand extended. "C'mere, bud..." She doesn't know their names. One of her many oversights. "It's okay-"

Her hand gets too close, and the dog stops his whining just long enough to let out a growling bark, gnashing his teeth in her direction. Alana backs off; the cry resumes.

She moves quietly through the living room, where most of the other dogs are asleep and blissfully unaware of the noise their companion is making, to get to the kitchen. Alana returns to the foyer armed with a box of dog treats and a long, chain leash, both recent purchases.

She tosses the mutt a bone shaped treat, a bribe. It bounces on the floor next to his paw, and he looks from it to Alana almost disdainfully, without ever lapsing into silence; that isn't what he wants.

"Fine, if that's how it's gonna be..." Alana mutters, ducking slightly and coming toward the dog, chain gathered in her hands, clip held open. The dog growls and backs away from her, but she lets the excess chain drop from one hand and seizes his collar, using the other to snap the fastener in place. The animal nips at her hand, his teeth grazing her skin, and Alana reels back, yelping in pain.

The dog starts barking, loudly, and soon two more of Will's pets pad into the room, so Alana grabs the end of the leash, gathering most of it in her hands so there's little slack, and forcibly tugs the troublemaker out the door and onto her porch. She's careful to close the door behind her immediately, so no stragglers get out. She's still been taking the dogs out one of two at a time, and always on leashes (shorter and more standard than the one she's using now), not yet trusting them not to run off. She'd never forgive herself if she lost one of his dogs.

Fed up, Alana loops the end of the chain around the railing of her porch twice before snapping it into place, firmly tying the dog. His whine opens up into a full blown howl, a long, mournful note that sounds like pure loss. Something in the sound shoots straight to Alana's gut, twists her stomach into knots and makes her want to cry.

The dog strains against the leash, the howl only amplifying, and maybe it's the sleep deprivation, but something about the animal in that moment reminds of her of Will, trapped and helpless and confused. It makes her feel so damn useless and ineffectual. Something inside Alana cracks open, and suddenly there are tears rolling down her cheeks and she's standing on her porch pleading with a dog.

"You think I don't know what you want? That I wouldn't bring him here if I could? But I _can't_, okay? I can't help you, I can't bring Will home, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_..."

And then her voice falls to pieces, and with a low, keening note that eerily echoes the dog's grieving howl, Alana starts sobbing. She sits down hard on the top step of the porch and drops her forehead against her knees, arms curled over her head, and she cries.

For awhile she doesn't notice that the night around her has gone quiet, that her sounds of heartbreak and grief are the only ones piercing the quiet now. Then, feeling a nudge against her arm, she slowly lifts her head to find the dog beside her. He rests his head on top of her knee, looking up at her with soft, baleful eyes, the first time he's gotten close to her without growling or snapping. As though she's finally done something the animal understands.

She scratches the animal behind his ears and blinks out a few stray tears. Her chest hurts, and it's cold out, and Alana is so, _so_ tired, but all the same she sits on the porch for another fifteen minutes before unwinding the chain from the porch and leading Will's dog back into her house.

The others are back asleep in the living room, but the mutt pads after Alana as she returns to her bedroom, and when she pats her mattress he jumps up, curling on the foot of her bed. He trusts her now, somehow, thanks to the common sound of their grieving.

Just before she finally, blessedly falls to sleep, Alana thinks again of the image of the dog straining against his leash on her porch, the same way he's done every time she's taken him outside over the last few days. If she let him go, he'd take off, trying to get back to his master.

But Alana isn't tied down. She can go see Will.

Tomorrow, she vows to herself before she drifts off. She'll see him tomorrow.

It is not any easier, seeing him here for a second time, looking small and disheveled and so out of place in his prison scrubs. He's lying flat on his back on his bed, but Will looks up when she approaches, and Alana catches the strange mix of relief and shame when he sees it's her.

"Hey," Alana starts, and she's relieved she sounds stronger than the last time she greeted him in a prison.

"Hi." Will stands up, moving toward the bars. His voice sounds raspy and unused, and Alana feels the first pang in her chest as she realizes how little occasion he'll have to speak every day.

"Are you okay?" It slips out before she can stop it, and Alana winces. Stupid question. She adds, "Are you eating? Sleeping?"

"Some," he says in a hollow, distant voice. There's a pause; Will's eyes hover in her vague direction, and he sounds a bit more normal when he asks, "Are _you_ sleeping?"

Alana smiles thinly. "Some." She steps as close to the bars as she can get, wanting to separate it from the profiling sessions she's had here, always in a chair, several feet back. She'd tried to convince Chilton to let her have a private meeting room, away from the cell, but apparently Will isn't cleared for that yet - no exceptions.

He's closer, so she can get a better look at him, and the pangs are coming frequently now. His eyes are bloodshot and lidded, expression etched with a bone deep exhaustion. Suddenly, though, a purposeful look comes over his face, and he closes the rest of the distance between them, wrapping his hands around the bars. "Did you talk to Jack? Did he tell you what I said?"

It takes Alana a second to realize Will means his theories about Hannibal. She swallows hard, struggling to keep her expression neutral. "He told me, yes."

She can actually see it, some tiny final glimmer of light in Will's eyes extinguishing. "You don't believe me." It's not a question, and there's a quiet devastation to the words.

Throat tight, Alana wraps her hand around his over the bars. "What I believe," she begins, voice gentle but deliberate. "Is that you've been sick. It's not you, Will, it was something physically wrong with your brain-"

"Most people with brain conditions don't commit murder," Will says flatly.

"Most people with brain conditions don't spend their working lives imagining how serial killers think," Alana counters, anger at Jack Crawford flaring fresh. She tightens her grip on his hand, just a little, and continues, "And I believe you would never knowingly hurt anyone. I believe this has nothing to do with who you are. It's something that's happened _to_ you."

For a moment, Will stares at their hands. His eyes are wet. After awhile, in a small, sad voice that cuts Alana to the quick, Will asks, "Are you afraid of me?"

She looks at him; right now, it's hard to imagine a person less threatening. He looks so beaten down, so fragile. It's so hard to reconcile this image of Will, _any_ image she has of Will, with a man who murdered Abigail Hobbs, whose arms were covered with the defensive wounds of a teenage girl who tried to fight back.

"No," Alana whispers, voice splintering. "Of course not."

Will sighs, then says resolutely, "It's better you don't believe me. That way he won't hurt you."

Alana closes her eyes. "Will, Hannibal wouldn't-"

"He would," Will cuts her off fiercely, more feeling in his voice than he's displayed yet. "He would if he had to. Just like with Abigail." Something dangerous flashes in Will's eyes, and Alana has to fight the instinct to look away. "So it's good you don't believe it. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Alana's throat constricts, her eyes burning. It's so hard to listen to, how sweet he is even when discussing a theory born from paranoia. "Nothing's gonna happen to me," she assures him shakily. Will nods, but he still looks genuinely worried. Alana asks, "They're keeping you monitored with regular scans, right? Started you on steroids for the enceph-"

"Yes," Will mutters, a shadow hooding his eyes.

He clearly doesn't want to talk about his medical treatment, so Alana moves on to something else. "I met with your lawyer yesterday. He said you're refusing to let Hannibal testify about your mental state."

Will's set his jaw, eyes narrowing in an anger not directed at her. "That's right."

Alana nods, resisting the urge to argue. She'd been briefed enough to know that's futile. "I told him I'd represent you psychiatrically."

Taken aback, the anger fades from Will's expression immediately. He frowns a little, uncertain. "But...I'm not your patient."

The words hit her hard, and all at once Alana's precariously close to tears as she thinks back to the last time Will said that to her.

She closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the bars, trying to regain her grip on her emotions. Will seems to sense what she's thinking, and he lifts his thumb from under her hand, tracing it across her skin, voice gentle as he changes the subject. "What happened here?"

Alana lifts her head and looks to where he's indicating: the short gash just behind her knuckle. "Oh..." she forces a weak laugh. "One of your dogs."

Will's head snaps up, eyes wide and guilty. "_Really_? God, sorry...which one?"

She does manage to smile a little at that. "Don't worry, we came to an understanding. But that is something I wanted to ask..." She straightens up a little and reaches in her pocket for her phone. "I don't know their names. Could you...?"

"Yeah, sure..." Will nods, reveling in the lightness of the task, and they lean close together as Alana scrolls through photos on her phone, Will rattling off the names as Alana makes note.

"...and that's Winston," Will says as she scrolls to the final photo. He glances sideways and catches her smile. "Is he the biter?"

"Yep."

"I'm sorry about that, he's, um. He's not usually aggressive."

"It's okay, I don't think we'll be having anymore problems." She looks up at Will, eyes softening. "He just wants you to come home." Alana pauses; Will isn't looking at her, his head ducked. Impulsively, she reaches through the bars and cups his cheek, lifting slightly so he has to look at her, and adds quietly, "I know the feeling."

He closes his eyes, leaning into the touch, and it breaks her heart a little because he seems so starved for contact. After a moment though, he looks at her again, not moving away, and gives a thin, humorless smile. "Dogs keep a promise a person can't, right?"

Alana's chest constricts, and she's quiet for a moment, absently sliding her hand from his cheek and wrapping it around the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. She looks up at him, eyes flashing with sudden purpose, and Alana makes a promise she hopes to God she can keep. "Will. I'mgoing to get you out of here. Okay? I know you think I don't believe you, but...I need you to believe me. I'm going to do everything I can to prove to that courtroom that you don't belong here." Her voice catches. "So don't give up, okay? Please?"

Slowly, painstakingly, Will lifts his gaze and lets his eyes meet hers for a few precious seconds. "I won't," he whispers, immediately looking away again, as he adds, "Thank you."

A tear rolls down her cheek; she's doing a lot of crying these days. A sudden rush of longing overwhelms her, and she resents the bars between them because all Alana wants in that moment is to put her arms around Will Graham and try desperately to make him believe everything's going to be okay.

Instead she squeezes his hand and promises to visit as much as she can. And as she walks away, Alana wonders if it will always hurt this much to leave him there.

When she gets home, Winston runs to greet her at the door, and Alana holds her right hand out to him. Winston sniffs curiously for a moment, then lets out an excited bark as he manages to discern Will's scent beneath the smell of prison, jumping and resting his paws on Alana's thighs, snout quivering as he searches for another trace of his master.

"Sorry, Winston," Alana says softly, using his name for the first time as she drops to her knees, rubbing the dog's head and trying to calm him. "He's not with me yet." But she remembers her promise, and now she makes the same one to herself: when she comes home from court on the final day of Will's trial, however many months from now, she'll be bringing Will with her.


End file.
